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When marine buddy, Gulfport, Mississippi Sheriff asks Craige Ingram for help, Ingram and Buckingham Parish patrolman ‘Badger’ Thomas Boback find themselves in the summertime dogdays of the humid Gulf Coast. With crowded beaches and an undermanned staff, a routine investigation soon becomes anything but routine when indescribable body parts start showing up along the surf, in beachfront cabins, half-buried in bayou wetlands, stashed under freeway bridges, and across county lines. Craige’s search for answers to identifying victims and killer among the crowds of tourists and skin-and-sun partygoers soon makes it obvious the victims have no connection with one another—until conflicting DNA results and haunting premonitions resembling the warnings Craige’s grannie often had become part of the investigation. The jigsaw of abandoned cross-kin offspring begin a horrifying Gordian Knot tangle that threatens anyone who approaches the shadowy ancient wreck of an old mansion - an asylum from a lost time.
Read an Excerpt
Craige grabbed a gloved handful of matted briers; pried away the snags off his camo field pants, “County maps show a road once came through here to the main house.” Fletch said, “The only time I was ever out here to Chateau Bois was with my dad; the paths and roads were clear-cut with none of this scrum growth. We could be standing in the middle of the dirt and gravel buggy lane and never know it. From what I can see of the house, it looks about the same. Except for that big oak near the porch in the front yard, there were no trees. Yard stayed clean cut. There was a fancy wrought iron fence. You’d think there’d be what’s left of a gate or fence in here somewhere.”
“Don’t take long in this humidity for rust to take hold of iron and all manner of critters digging and chewing. Mold and big black carpenter ants, wood bees, powder-puff beetles, pesky Argentine ants—untreated fence posts and any wood don’t last long.” Craige shoved against the twist of honeysuckle runners dangling from the scrub oak and sweet gum trees. Yellow Jackets buzzed out from a jostled nest. Craige froze. “Stand still.” Only his eyes moved, “Don’t run. Somewhere in these blackberries we’ve stirred us a Yellow Jacket nest. You run; the whole nest will swarm your butt. Keep still and they’ll buzz around; go on off.” He braced himself for stings that never came. Angry buzzes cleared out; a few hung around, then were gone. After a few more shoves through the overgrowth the house emerged from its leafy shroud and towered in front of them. Fletch stopped, “I don’t remember it being so big. It’s been more than twenty years, maybe longer, since I last saw this place.”
“Must have been quite a showplace in its day.” Craige let his eyes roam the shuttered windows on the upper floors, several loose panels dangled from attic gables. Most of the upper windows were shuttered or boarded. Leaning back, he looked to the roof eaves and overhangs.
“Considerable mildew and wood-rot around the window frames, but it doesn’t look too bad for being empty all these years. Always struck me odd how a house not lived in pines away to rack and ruin as though it knows no one cares about it.” Fletch walked around one side. “Looks the same over this way, too. No sign St. Jacques drove out here, no tracks, none of the weeds and scrub growth knocked down.”
“He would likely have left the car back at the highway. No way he could get a car in here. If he’d tried, the vehicle would still be stuck in that drainage washout we jumped.”
Craige eased a step up onto the boards of the porch. Gingerly added his full weight; felt the rotted boards crackle, but they held. He wasn’t about to let rotten boards set him straddling a ball-busting floor support. Took another step; his boots echoed leaded thuds on the long unused wood.
From the corner window on the second-floor suspicious eyes peeked between the dust-covered spider-webbed slatted shutters. The eyes grew wide, breathing quickened when Craige disappeared from view beneath the rusty tin porch roof. He glanced toward Jeffus, finger held straight against his pursed lips to be still. It was too late to get Jeffus downstairs. Jeffus shuffled slowly into a corner; retreated into the shadows and hunkered. Hardly any daylight peeked through the heavy, age-rotted drapes with only a dim reflection in the smudged broken mirror in the once-upon-a-time stuffy shuttered bedroom.
About the Author:
Hawk MacKinney has authored several award-winning works of fiction that include THE MOCCASIN HOLLOW MYSTERY SERIES and THE CAIRNS OF SAINCTUARIE SCIENCE FICTION SERIES. His historical romance MOCCASIN TRACE was nominated for the prestigious Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction and the Writers Notes Book Award.
Cross-genre character-driven plots reflect Hawk MacKinney’s southwest upbringing along the Texas and Oklahoma borders. With postgraduate faculty positions in several medical universities, Hawk MacKinney has taught graduate courses in both the United States and Jerusalem.
Website: http://www.hawkmackinneyauthor.com
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Shadows-Hawk-MacKinney/dp/B0FG47PDSV/ref=sr_1_1
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